Post by tufta on Jan 27, 2013 11:12:44 GMT 1
Recent Czech presidential elections surfaced in the forum already in a tatoo section. Unsuprisingly the tatooed candidate, artist Vladimir Franz, didn't qualify to the final round.
Or maybe suprisingly, as Czech are among the most distanced people, including politics - and it was all but obvious Franz would lose.
Maybe nexy time.
The final round was between left-winger Milos Zeman and conservative Karel Schwarzenberg.
Zeman
Schwarzeberg (right)
Zeman won by a wide 10 per cent margin. With Zeman voters calling the rival "Trautenberk", name of a loathed aristocratic character in Czech television bedtime story series, the aristocratic candidate had no chance
Trautenberk
And that in spite of many young Schwarzenberg voters' trying to change their beloved candidates' image
I have never witness such a foul-play campaigne in Czechia.
"The finalists, Mr Zeman and Karel Schwarzenberg, declared that they will stay away from personal attacks. But voters did not have to wait long for the first batch of sleaze. Exploiting deeply-rooted prejudices against aristocrats and Germans (and thus especially against German-speaking aristocrats) that still appears to hold sway among older Czechs, Mr. Zeman portrayed himself as a plebeian. His camp tried to cast Mr Schwarzenberg as a degenerate: insufficiently Czech and insufficiently patriotic. A patrician whose relatives were Nazis."
"A blogger called Václav Klaus (son of the president), for example, ridiculed Mr. Schwarzenberg (who has a speech impediment) for his imperfect take on the Czech national anthem. He added in subsequent blog posts and interviews that Mr Schwarzenberg's father-in-law was a Nazi and his father was a member of a pre-war far-right movement, which he described as antisemitic and Xenophobic"
That in spite of "historians describe Schwarzenberg's father as a Czech patriotic monarchist who left the group before it collaborated with the Nazis. He was among aristocrats who pledged their loyalty to the Czech state on the eve of the World War II. The Nazis then confiscated the family's property."
"The campaign also echoes the 70-year-old evergreen of Czech political campaign scaremongering: potential property claims by the Czechoslovak German minority, the so-called Sudeten Germans"
"Mr Zeman has tapped ingrained feelings that date back to the nation's revival in the 19th Century. Unlike in Hungary and Poland, the nobility were not a driving force in the Czech national movement. While patriotic to the Czech lands, the aristocrats failed to back the patriots' efforts to emancipate the Czech language, says historian Jiøí Rak. The more radical of the Czech nationalists cast the nobility as the nation's fierce enemy by the end of the 19th Century."
"The young people do not have the experience" with the anti-aristocratic and anti-German stereotypes, said Mr Rak. "If this rhetoric works for Zeman this time, it won't in five years from now. Young people don't swallow it."
More: www.economist.com/blogs/easternapproaches/2013/01/czech-presidency
The Czech mainstream media fiercely and unduly supported Schwarzenberg and black-painted Zeman... a lesson for Polish media perhaps?
Or maybe suprisingly, as Czech are among the most distanced people, including politics - and it was all but obvious Franz would lose.
Maybe nexy time.
The final round was between left-winger Milos Zeman and conservative Karel Schwarzenberg.
Zeman
Schwarzeberg (right)
Zeman won by a wide 10 per cent margin. With Zeman voters calling the rival "Trautenberk", name of a loathed aristocratic character in Czech television bedtime story series, the aristocratic candidate had no chance
Trautenberk
And that in spite of many young Schwarzenberg voters' trying to change their beloved candidates' image
I have never witness such a foul-play campaigne in Czechia.
"The finalists, Mr Zeman and Karel Schwarzenberg, declared that they will stay away from personal attacks. But voters did not have to wait long for the first batch of sleaze. Exploiting deeply-rooted prejudices against aristocrats and Germans (and thus especially against German-speaking aristocrats) that still appears to hold sway among older Czechs, Mr. Zeman portrayed himself as a plebeian. His camp tried to cast Mr Schwarzenberg as a degenerate: insufficiently Czech and insufficiently patriotic. A patrician whose relatives were Nazis."
"A blogger called Václav Klaus (son of the president), for example, ridiculed Mr. Schwarzenberg (who has a speech impediment) for his imperfect take on the Czech national anthem. He added in subsequent blog posts and interviews that Mr Schwarzenberg's father-in-law was a Nazi and his father was a member of a pre-war far-right movement, which he described as antisemitic and Xenophobic"
That in spite of "historians describe Schwarzenberg's father as a Czech patriotic monarchist who left the group before it collaborated with the Nazis. He was among aristocrats who pledged their loyalty to the Czech state on the eve of the World War II. The Nazis then confiscated the family's property."
"The campaign also echoes the 70-year-old evergreen of Czech political campaign scaremongering: potential property claims by the Czechoslovak German minority, the so-called Sudeten Germans"
"Mr Zeman has tapped ingrained feelings that date back to the nation's revival in the 19th Century. Unlike in Hungary and Poland, the nobility were not a driving force in the Czech national movement. While patriotic to the Czech lands, the aristocrats failed to back the patriots' efforts to emancipate the Czech language, says historian Jiøí Rak. The more radical of the Czech nationalists cast the nobility as the nation's fierce enemy by the end of the 19th Century."
"The young people do not have the experience" with the anti-aristocratic and anti-German stereotypes, said Mr Rak. "If this rhetoric works for Zeman this time, it won't in five years from now. Young people don't swallow it."
More: www.economist.com/blogs/easternapproaches/2013/01/czech-presidency
The Czech mainstream media fiercely and unduly supported Schwarzenberg and black-painted Zeman... a lesson for Polish media perhaps?
